...is a close match.

You peer cautiously through the trees, keeping your distance from the light show unfolding before you. The witch stands alone in a clearing, wand stabbing in brutally efficient gestures as she blasts spiders out of the trees. You flinch as a magenta bolt arcs through a cluster of spiders to your left, dropping a cluster of manny-legged bodies from the canopy. Good lord...the woman is a **** of nature! You watch in horror as the Witch screams out an incantation and an entire half of the clearing is suddenly consumed in an inferno. It only lasts a second but when it clears you see that it overlapped some of the trees across from your hiding spot, leaving only blackened trunks behind. Her voice booms, magically amplified beyond all reasoning, "I AM MIERA THE GOD TOUCHED! BE GONE INFERIOR CREATURES!" Spiders fall writhing in pain from the canopy like an unholy hail storm. They didn't respond well to loud noises. You think back to when you were seriously considering attacking her outright...an unpleasant shiver runs through you. You clutch Dana closer and she gives a strangled squeak. Ahem. Sorry.

She barely notices, eyes wide and staring at the frenzied witch, "...She's not supposed to be real...." What? "Miera the god touched is just a myth used to keep the guild in line..." The witch stumbles and an intrepid spider leaps at her from the darkness....it's sent flying back into the trees by an orange spell where it detonates with the **** of a small bomb, the shockwave tearing a good portion of the leaves from your body and almost throwing dana from your grasp. You flatten the two of you to the ground, Dana, whatever's out there, it's real. But she isn't some demigod, she's flesh and blood and XP just like you or I.

You know you're right: Despite the overwhelming display of power you can see that the witch is tiring. Her robe is torn where a lucky spider got through to her and you can see a wild look in her eyes as she spins to face every flicker of movement in the shadows. She was running out of mana. Ironically, it was her own power that would be her undoing: Her spells were deadly but they were overkill for these enemies. They weren't worth the mana she was using to destroy them. She must have realized they would just keep coming because she was using ridiculously flashy spells, trying to awe the horde into submission. The spiders weren't fooled. They continued to throw themselves at her, one by one, in little kamikaze leaps. Eventually, she'd run out of ammo.

"Um. We-You want to be the one to take the kill right?" You feel a happy rush that she had to stop herself from grouping the two of you together. Yes, that would be the idea. "Uh...well you might want to clear out some of these spiders before she runs out of mana. We'd all get swarmed if she ran out now." Hm. She had a point. The witch was looking rather haggard. You start discreetly yanking passing spiders out of the trees, letting gravity do most of the work as you whipped them down into the ground. Amidst the confusion nobody noticed the little XP bursts and the slowly thinning ranks of the spiders. You felt a twisted sense of retribution each time you smashed one of the arachnids, That was for my upper left vine...that was for trying to poison me...That was because you tried to carry Dana away...

"Look!" Dana pulls your attention back to the struggling witch. Eye's wild, the witch is drawing a circle with her wand, casting a green veil in a large radius on the ground around her. She drops into a crouch, hastily drawing symbols in the soft mossy earth: She's going to teleport out! You almost jump forward...but you catch yourself before you touch the green circle. The spiders are not so lucky: a first responder leaps for the witch...and promptly disintegrates into the equivalent of spider-bones as he passes over the sickly green glow. Ward. Clever girl... "What're we going to do?" You eye the destructive perimeter warily, I...don't know.

The spiders hiss in frustration, some throwing themselves at the ward in an effort to wear it down prematurely. But it's not designed to stop enemies...It's designed to kill them. None make it through to the muttering witch as the teleport spell powers up, little purple sparks arcing over the sigils she's drawn in the dirt. You simmer in frustration before you realize: the ward kills enemies. And ONLY enemies. "Dana...the ward is meant to stop monsters, not other characters." You're hesitant to suggest it but her eyes go wide and she grins at you, "You're right! I could get through easily!" She frowns, "But I'd have to finish her then. You wouldn't get the XP."

Wow. You couldn't believe she'd point out a flaw she could just as easily have exploited to escape. Then again, Dana wasn't an overly complicated personality. She might not know what she wanted but there was only one level of confusion: the surface. Ok....we need something to immobilize her till her magic's worn off... You eye the witch nervously as purple sparks begin crawling up her arms and legs...We don't have time to come up with an elegant solution: hit her with this-you brandish a club-like stick-lightly, and then tie her up with these-You tear some non-monster vines from the tree in front of you. The spell will backfire as soon as you interfere! She'll be an easy target! Go! Quickly!

Dana dashes into the circle, completely unaffected by the deathly haze. Several spiders spot her and leap...only to crumble to dust before reaching her. You rise up with a roar, slashing at the surprised spiders skittering around you. Unable to get through to the two heroines in the circle, the remaining spider forces turn their undivided attention and rage at you. You had seriously underestimated how many spiders were in this territory, the swarm that attacked you earlier must have been a splinter group. Considering the witch had probably been at it for almost an hour, killing dozens upon dozens of them, that you'd discretely killed a few dozen yourself, and that there were STILL more than you could count...Well. You're glad you sent the witch in first.

"Argh!" The witch screams as her casting is interrupted, a purple flash of light momentarily drawing your attention from the remains of the spider horde descending on you. Her teleport spell backfires and the magic blasts back into her, briefly lifting her off the ground in a crackling field of purple static. She is alive when she falls back to earth but only just. Weakly she lifts a hand, calling up one last spell-WACK. Dana clubs her arm into submission, quickly pulling it behind her to tie in a hasty knot with the vines. HAHA! THAT'S MY GIRL! Dana looks up at you, beaming at the praise, and then screams as you disappear under a black carpet of giant arachnids.